Ain't No Good in an Evil-Hearted Woman
by electric.currant
Summary: In a '50s women's prison, wrongfully convicted murderess Mary Margaret Blanchard faces off with strangely attentive Warden Regina Mills.
1. Chapter 1

"Have you ever been in love?"

It wasn't a strange question, but it wasn't one Mary Margaret Blanchard wanted to answer, not only because it made her unaccountably uncomfortable but also because it was past lights out, and chatting was prohibited.

"Ruby, please. It's past lights out. Chatting is prohibited," Mary Margaret whispered.

Ruby Lucas had been flopping around on the top bunk for the better part of an hour. She was often restless, especially at night. In fact, Mary Margaret sometimes counted how many times she switched positions as a way of lulling herself to sleep.

"It's a yes or a no," Ruby said.

"No."

"No as an answer, or no you're not talking to me?"

Mary Margaret considered this for a moment.

"Both," she said finally.

The room was silent.

"Ok," Ruby said. She shifted in her bunk again. "I know you'd get in trouble before I would-" Everyone knew that if anyone were busted for any infraction it would be Mary Margaret. Warden Mills seemed to have it out for her-and the spies in place to enforce it all day and all night. "I just didn't want to talk about this in front of everybody is all."

Mary Margaret considered again.

"Climb in with me so we can talk more quietly." She wouldn't have made this request of anyone but Ruby for several reasons: first, she trusted Ruby, and second, Ruby was the stealthiest person she'd ever met.

She thought briefly about why she trusted Ruby. They'd never had the "what're you in for" talk. Maybe that was exactly the reason why she trusted her: They didn't exactly know each other's demons and temptations and wrongs and rights. They knew each other's sympathetic smiles and favorite cafeteria meals, and that felt as good as anything could. Mary Margaret was scared that this current conversation was going to ruin what they had-this facade of innocent anonymity that made her feel halfway normal. Everyone in here seemed to know her from the papers. Ruby either didn't or pretended not to. That was a mercy.

Ruby silently snuggled in next to her. Mary Margaret didn't want to talk, and she didn't want to cuddle. But Ruby was her friend, and she had a duty.

"I was in love once," Ruby said almost inaudibly.

"And then you killed him, and now you're here," Mary Margaret thought to herself. She'd heard it a hundred times before, and she was beyond being heartsick about it. Instead of voicing her cynicism, Mary Margaret said,

"Was it nice?" And she had surprised herself with the question. She seemed to have surprised Ruby, as well, as she paused before she said,

"For a while."

"Tell me about the good times."

They looked at each other in the darkness and pretended to see each other 's earnest expressions but really just saw the heavy gloom that both separated them and kept them close.

"He was beautiful," Ruby said.

"That's nice." Mary Margaret hadn't known what to say, so she had said something trite. The only people she knew who were beautiful also happened to be terrible.

"It was." Ruby yawned, and her description of his shining eyes and hair turned to gibberish as she fell asleep.

Mary Margaret lay there in the blackness, uncomfortably warm with the other body nestled beside her. She wished she could feel safe and cozy instead. But she couldn't and she wouldn't. She fell asleep anyway.

xxxxx

"Lucas! Floor-scrubbing duty with Nolan! Blanchard, with me!" A surly guard yelled, yanking Mary Margaret bodily from the mild comfort of unconsciousness.

The other guard, Nolan, grimaced a little apologetically as she dragged Ruby with her, but this guard, whom everyone called-unironically-Mal, smiled as she swatted Mary Margaret on the rear, guiding her to the tiny lavatory in the corner.

"Comb that mess, and brush your teeth, sweetheart. You know Warden Mills likes to see you as clean as a dirty little thing like you can be."

Mal followed her and was close behind her as she said further,

"You know the regs, princess. Lucas is a hot number, but good girls sleep single. You wanna be a good girl, don't you?"

The words in her ear made her shiver. She had no desire to be a good girl or a bad girl. She didn't have any desires at all, at least none she had any right voicing, none that would be heard, none that made her feel human or right, none that she had even processed fully.

"Yes, ma'am," Mary Margaret said anyway because it was expected.

"I could probably sweep this under the rug for you…" Mal trailed off until there was just a tuft of air raising the hair on Mary Margaret's neck.

Mary Margaret spit out her toothpaste and smoothed her clothes.

"No, thank you, ma'am," she said, pretending not to understand the innuendo that would inevitably follow. "If one does the crime, one must do the time."

Mal pouted into the small, distorted mirror.

"Warden Mills will be happy to hear you feel that way."

Mary Margaret's heart clenched. Mal was toying with her, of course. Warden Mills was never pleased with anything Mary Margaret did, and she shouldn't have cared about pleasing her anyway.

They stood there, too close together, staring at each other's reflections.

"Well, go on, princess," Mal said. "Change your duds. Warden Mills doesn't want to smell whatever you and Lucas got up to last night."

Mary Margaret blushed.

"It wasn't like that, ma'am. It was chilly last night, and the blankets-"

"Oh so now you're going to read me the Riot Act about prison conditions? I'll just add stirring up rebellion to your infractions."

"Please, ma'am, I didn't mean-"

"Shut up, and disrobe."

Mary Margaret shut up and disrobed. Her undergarments were coarse and prison issue, but Mal eyed her the same as if they were silk.

xxxxx

"Sapphic activities?" Warden Mills let the words drip from her red mouth. Beauty products were contraband for the inmates, and Warden Mills taunted them all with her perfect makeup.

She stood and rounded her desk, and Mary Margaret couldn't help but take in the lay of her uniform. It was crisp, pressed, worn jauntily with a popped collar. She suspected this was against regulations, but who would presume to warden the warden? Her eyes flitted to where the warden's hands were clenching into fists in the pockets of her pencil skirt, calling attention to both her agitation and the tightness of the skirt. Mary Margaret shook herself out of it. She hated the way she felt when she looked at her-dirty and embarrassed and stupid.

Warden Mills narrowed her eyes.

"So you have nothing to say for yourself?"

"No-I-" Mary Margaret shifted her weight and tried not to focus her eyes on the triangle of flesh exposed by the warden's open collar. "There were no sapphic activities."

Warden Mills stepped closer with a menacing, low tone.

"You expect me to believe that a depraved little scoundrel like you didn't lure her cell mate into a bed of debauchery when you were caught red handed in that very same bed of debauchery?" Her tone had risen to almost a yell. It was much too loud for the small distance between them.

"Yes-I-It-"

"What lies are you trying to spit out, you little heathen? That you would never?"

"Yes," Mary Margaret said. The warden laughed a mean laugh.

"Do you think I'm blind, inmate?"

"Blind? I-" Mary Margaret's heart and mind raced simultaneously, anxiously. What was it that the warden saw?

"I've seen you. You may not think I know you," she punctuated with a pointy index finger to Mary Margaret's chest. "But I do."

"Ma'am?" The warden poked her again and laughed a mean, hard little laugh.

"You little fool. You don't even know it yourself."

Warden Mills didn't move an inch, but her tone became more pointed and somehow intimate,

"Those big green eyes of yours do a lot of looking at things they oughtn't be looking at."

Before Mary Margaret could even swallow down her apprehension, she realized her eyes had, at some point she hadn't been conscious of, drifted to the warden's lips. She did swallow then and as quickly as she could manage found the warden's eyes again, and those eyes held more mean laughter and a raised brow.

"So, Blanchard." Warden Mills smiled and leaned back on her desk. "What ought to be your punishment?"

"I-" She was suddenly aware of how stuffy it was in there, and she wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. "I-I've done nothing to be punished for."

Warden Mills laughed. It was still mean, but now it was full and ringing.

"A funny thing for a convicted murderess to say."

"I suppose it is. But if you know me so well-"

Warden Mills stepped half a step closer and mostly whispered,

"Oh, I do."

They stood-too close, separated and drawn closer by an electricity neither could name-for a long beat. Finally Warden Mills smiled.

"You seem to enjoy cleaning, so floor scrubbing is out." She started to pace a slow, tight, counterclockwise circle around Mary Margaret's stiff frame. "And if I gave you the lash-" she paused, standing behind her, close enough that her gesticulating fingertips grazed her back. "-you'd probably enjoy that, too, you little reprobate." She rounded out the circle and was facing her again. "And solitary would be a reprieve from the rumors and gossip, which I know torture you." They stared at each other-a grimace, a smile. An idea seemed to hit Warden Mills. "My personal laundry." At Mary Margaret's confused look she added, "You'll get to see what you'll never have."

Suddenly Mary Margaret knew what Warden Mills had been hinting at, and she was almost as appalled as she was shamed.

"No-I-it's-"

"No wonder you were convicted, dear. You must've been quite tedious on the witness stand." She walked back to her desk, still smiling.

"You're dismissed, inmate."

Mary Margaret wished she'd gotten the chair.


	2. Chapter 2

"Pathetic," Senator Mills said, sneering at a report she had thrust open on Warden Mills's desk. Senator Cora Mills had a mouth even redder and a skirt suit even tighter than Warden Mills. But she was a senator and so always ready to be photographed for Life Magazine if the opportunity presented itself.

Warden Mills fought back a snarling reply and said-unable to keep all of the sizzle out-

"Mother. I asked you here for lunch, not for your assessment of my work." Senator Mills chuckled, and, inside, Warden Mills was boiling already. She never should've invited the woman for even the most benign reason, especially on a day she had other things to do. Her mother would either dampen her entire mood or lift her entire mood, and she wouldn't normally consider herself a gambling woman.

"Your work? Do you run a detention center or a daycare center? Your rate of recidivism is appalling, your prisoners are fat-" The warden attempted to pour ice on the situation with a smile and,

"Are you trying to imply I am not cruel enough to the inmates? What would your constituents say?"

"You've obviously never met my constituents." Senator Mills smiled bigger. "I just know you have so much potential, dear. And you're letting it all go to waste in this dump."

"And what would you have me do? Marry a decrepit, rich congressman and wait for him to die so I could take his place?"

A shadow fell over her mother's face, and for a moment she'd thought she'd gone too far. Then her mother said,

"If I didn't know better I'd think you had some sick little motive for being here, placing yourself in a position of power above so many weak, damaged women." Daggers emerged in the eyes of both women.

Yes, she had gone too far, and now her mother was pulling out all her sweetest smiles and sharpest words.

"If you didn't know better," the warden said, low, softly intense.

"You're just so committed to public service. It must run in the family," the senator said, serpentine and saccharine. They shared a look and a beat.

"Lunch, then?"

The air cleared. Superficially, at least.

"We're not dining in the prison cafeteria, are we?"

"Although that would be good PR, Mother, I've ordered in."

xxxxx

"Run the test again," Dr. Gold said. The prison psychiatrist sat on the edge of an exam table in the medical bay. The prison doctor was pacing in front of him.

"I've already run it twice," Dr. Whale said, pausing in his circuit of the small room. "I don't know what you expect me to do."

"I expect you to run it again, dearie." Dr. Whale frowned at the condescending endearment.

"And magically this mysterious serum is going to produce whatever mysterious results you're expecting?"

Dr. Gold raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"I don't actually work for you, you know," Dr. Whale said.

"Ah yes. You work for," he waggled a few thin fingers in the air, "Warden Mills."

"Directly. But this is a federal prison."

Dr. Gold hopped off the exam table.

"Are you attempting to intimidate me, Doctor?"

"Of course not. I'm stating facts."

"Here's the only fact you need: Run the test again."

Dr. Whale scrunched his brow.

"Oh, do I need to throw in the 'Or else someone might make it known to Warden Mills about your extracurricular experiments'?"

"I could volley that right back to you." The psychiatrist's eyes went dark.

"Run the test. You don't want me to have to tell you again."

Dr. Whale nodded and resumed pacing. And in the next-or perhaps even the same-moment, Dr. Gold was gone, leaving not even a ripple of air when the door shut.

xxxxx

"When's the next full moon?" Nolan shivered and pulled her smock closer around her. The inmates were amusing themselves in the yard, and she stood watching them with a chilly foreboding.

Mal was leaned against the brick wall smoking a cigarette, indifferent.

"Why? You're not superstitious, are you?"

"Well, no, but, don't you think everybody's been kind of…" She trailed off trying to put what she was feeling into words and watching as Blanchard paced alone in a corner.

"Absolutely. Everybody's been very kind of." Mal rolled her eyes and stubbed out her cigarette, flicked it through the barbed wire to her left.

"Weird, I mean. Restless."

Mal looked at her and smiled.

"You feel a riot coming on, Nolan? If so, I look forward to busting some heads with you."

"No. It's just-"

The horn blared. Recreation was over.

xxxxx

Mary Margaret took another futile swipe at her bleary eyes. She approximated that it was somewhere past midnight. She had been half dragged to the warden's office without so much as a grunt of explanation.

Warden Mills looked as calm and cool and awake as if she had just dressed for a quiet dinner party, sitting at her desk running her slender fingers over a brass key. She smiled at the guard who had brought Mary Margaret and nodded a tiny nod. The guard left, a tense silence filling the room in her absence. Warden Mills let it linger for a moment and then stood to walk closer to Mary Margaret, the key still in her hands.

"You seem to have no trouble staying awake for illicit activities," Warden Mills purred. "So I thought it'd be no trouble for you to begin your penance now." Mary Margaret caught a chill at the words.

"It's your prerogative to request me at any time," Mary Margaret said. The late hour and the dearth of other awake individuals emboldened her to shake off her dread and play along as much as she could.

"How very reasonable of you," Warden Mills said, scoffing.

"However," Mary Margaret all but whispered. "I have a confession." The warden closed in on her, smiling and waiting. "I've never done laundry before." The warden laughed.

"You'll find I'm a very good teacher. Of a great many things." There was something lewd in her voice, and again Mary Margaret shivered.

Suddenly she was in a dark corridor she barely recognized and then the moist heat of the laundry room. Warden Mills clicked on one light, the room becoming an eerie greenish. On the work table were three hampers. The warden gestured to the left two.

"These can go in machines. One scoop of powder. Directions are on the machine. Tumble dry low when the time comes. The dryer has directions, too. But you may have to relight the pilot." She reached into her blazer pocket and then tossed a pack of matches at Mary Margaret. She then sauntered toward the dryer, stood on her tiptoes to remove a panel. "See? No blue flame." She turned to smile at her. "Try not to blow yourself up. One fewer inmate is fewer tax dollars." Mary Margaret grimaced.

"And the other hamper?" The warden's smile widened.

"Intimates. Hand wash and line dry." Her heels clicked and echoed as she crossed back to Mary Margaret. "I'm sure you won't need a tutorial for that." And she pushed a box of soap toward her. "Someone will fetch you in a few hours."

Mary Margaret heard the door lock behind her and felt dizzyingly alone.

She started on the machine clothes first. She reasoned with herself that she didn't know how long a washing machine cycle took, but there was something in her that was frightened about how she would feel as she pawed through the warden's underclothes.


	3. Chapter 3

"Tell me how you're feeling," Dr. Gold said from his leather armchair.

Mary Margaret was content to be reclining on the leather chaise. Anything was better than her cot. She had bought herself a little time there by not speaking.

"What does it matter?"

"My recommendations tend to hold a little sway with the parole board," he said so cheerily that it made Mary Margaret want to wretch.

"I'm feeling-" she craned her neck to look at him. He was smiling, and she was frowning, and she hated everything. "-tense."

"Explain…"

"I just feel-" she was torn between wanting to spill all her feelings and not knowing what any of those feelings were or meant. "Well I'm in prison." She looked up at him again briefly to find him still smiling that maddening smile. "I feel like I'm in prison," she said after a beat.

"Very helpful, dearie." He sighed. "You're hurting only yourself with your silence."

There was a long pause then.

"Good," she said finally. "I'd hate to hurt anyone else."

A guard rapped on the door. Her time was up. She would miss the chaise but not the company.

As she exited, he walked to the phone, dialed an in-house number:

"Dr. Whale. Up the dosage."

xxxxx

"I'm simply saying, Warden, that we might want a few extra hands for the full moon."

Warden Mills chuckled, and Mal chuckled, too. Both chuckles were forced, but Mal's was more so.

"You're buying into the superstitions, then?" Warden Mills said.

"Excuse me for being blunt, but what do you pay me for?" They shared a look. "For noticing things. Being proactive."

Mal stubbed out her cigarette in the warden's ashtray and leaned in over the desk.

"I was skeptical at first, too. But I'd rather be safe than sorry:"

Someone rapped on the door, and Mal straightened her posture. Warden Mills rolled her eyes and said,

"Come in."

Her face fell immediately.

"I see you're having… an important conference," Senator Mills said in her grand entrance, shrugging off her satin-lined cape and handing it gracefully and nonchalantly to Mal. Mal placed it on the coatrack as the senator had expected her to even as she exchanged a wry glance with the warden.

Warden Mills partook in this furtive exchange and then capitulated to her mother's implication.

"Thank you for your concern, Sergeant. I'll get back with you on this matter soon."

Mal nodded sulkily and left. Senator Mills regally took her vacated chair.

"Mother. I don't recall inviting you to my office this afternoon."

"You didn't. I was in the neighborhood." She smiled, and Warden Mills frowned.

"Lunch?" Warden Mills said.

"No, thank you. Just checking up on you. Have you made the changes I suggested?"

Warden Mills shuffled some papers on her desk.

"I've got a lot going on at the moment, Mother."

Senator Mills recrossed her legs.

"I'm sure you do. But there's always room for improvement."

Before she could say anything that might incite something, her phone rang. She smiled at her mother, and her mother smiled back, a mixture of charming and predatory.

Warden Mills furrowed her brow as she placed a hand over the receiver.

"And if you were just in the neighborhood, how would Dr. Gold know to ring you here?"

"I'm sure you'll appreciate that a woman has her secrets." They stared at each other for a second. "I'm in the neighborhood for a reason, dear. We're discussing parole board matters."

Warden Mills sighed and handed the phone to her mother.

xxxxx

"My linens are damp." Warden Mills held a pillowcase between her thumb and index finger with a disgusted expression on her perfectly powdered face as if the pillowcase held a communicable disease.

"I-" Mary Margaret glanced at the intimates hanging on the line to her left and then back at Warden Mills.

"You what?" The disgust had doubled.

"The-I didn't have a way to reach anyone. I couldn't get the pilot light lit."

"And in two hours you couldn't figure it out." The disgust had now tripled.

"One hour." Warden Mills raised an eyebrow in question, to which Mary Margaret continued, "It was only an hour ago that I put anything in the dryer."

Warden Mills tossed the pillowcase into the still-open dryer and slammed the door shut.

"You're more useless than I had originally assumed."

"I suppose you'll have to find another laundress."

There was a flash in the warden's eyes.

"Come here," the warden said, dark and low. Mary Margaret didn't want to, but she knew there was no escape.

When Mary Margaret had closed the distance between them, Warden Mills grabbed a wrist, and her small hand had a grip Mary Margaret hadn't anticipated.

"Even the best teacher can't teach a student who doesn't want to be taught." And the warden's eyes glistened and glinted in the greenish light.

"I bruise easily," Mary Margaret whispered as she didn't struggle against the warden's grasp.

"Good." She tightened her grip, to the point of just a little pain. "But you're not listening."

"I'm listening," Mary Margaret said.

Warden Mills guided Mary Margaret's hand toward the small panel she had opened two weeks ago and manipulated Mary Margaret's hand to open it now. She didn't let go as she inched her face even closer to Mary Margaret's.

"As you can see, there is a little tube that looks like it should have a flame coming out of it. As you can see, there is no such flame. Make a flame."

They stared at each other, inches, centimeters apart. Mary Margaret blinked.

"Don't tell me you've traded the matches I gave you."

"No, I-"

"Light one, Blanchard."

"I left them in my other smock."

Warden Mills again tightened her grip on Mary Margaret's wrist, and Mary Margaret winced. The warden produced another matchbook from her blazer pocket, and placed it forcefully into Mary Margaret's free hand.

"I-How am I to-I can't do it one-handed."

The warden sighed but didn't loosen her grip. She deftly took one match from the book and lit it on her thumbnail.

"See if you can get this in the right spot."

The match was flickering in between them, and Mary Margaret took it, tremblingly touched it to the little metal tube, which made her arm stretch behind the warden's head, bringing them closer. Warden Mills didn't look behind her, just stared into Mary Margaret's eyes.

"Well?" The warden said.

They were standing there, in an embrace that wasn't.

"Yes," Mary Margaret said.

Warden Mills dropped Mary Margaret's wrist and walked a pace away.

"I'm going home. And straight to bed. Someone will fetch you presently."

She turned to go and then turned back.

"And because you've troubled me so, you can go ahead and press everything, too."

They stared at each other.

"If you can't figure out the electric iron, I might have to put you out of your misery."

Mary Margaret tensed. She knew her life wasn't actually in danger. The tax dollars protected her. But she had certainly never ironed anything.

"Never mind," Warden Mills said, pressing two fingers to her temple. "I don't have the time for the personal tutoring required for that particular task. But at least do some push-ups or something."

Mary Margaret was silent and still and stiff. She had at least witnessed people doing push-ups.

"Ye gads! I'm not going to demonstrate that, either!" Warden Mills fairly shouted. "Just twiddle your thumbs and look pretty. That's all you're good for."

She was mostly out the door when Mary Margaret said,

"I can dance."

Warden Mills didn't even turn back as she said,

"And shoot a .25 caliber pistol."

The door was locked behind her before Mary Margaret rejoined, now just to herself,

"And engage in sapphic activities."

She bit her tongue afterward anyway.


End file.
